Only Forward
by yesido
Summary: Series of vaguely interrelated vignettes. Warnings for angst and drug use.


Curt had never really liked sex, until he met Brian.

Sure, he enjoyed it, he got off, all of that, but sex was always something dirty, exploitative. It was never tender, loving, passionate. He hadn't really been aware of anything other than manipulation as a possibility before.

So that was one good thing he could say about Brian: Brian had taught him to like sex.

He is falling, falling, flying, he is staying very still. Gravity has no meaning for him anymore. The phone has been ringing forever, it feels like, from very far away. He doesn't care. He doesn't answer. He feels very warm, he feels like he is wrapped in swaddling clothes, he itches all over. He has never been so happy. He is totally alone, the heat was turned off days ago, a few degrees lower and he could see his breath, and he is loving it.

Sleep.

---

Curt jerks off to the sound of Jesse having sex in the next room. Curt never caught the girl's name; it didn't matter. Curt knows that Jesse knows that Curt can hear them. Curt supposes that he and Jesse will fuck sooner or later. Jesse is ostensibly straight, but willing to make exceptions when he's horny. Jesse will want to be on top, he will be too rough, he will get up afterwards and go sleep alone. Curt is willing to accept that. Curt listens to Jesse's caterwauling through the walls, matches his pace to Jesse's, and in adjacent rooms they come at almost the same moment.

---

And it is so good, so good this time, not like what he's been getting lately, this was worth every overpriced penny and he and the couch are melding and the world is immaterial and he's like a god; he can look down on the scene, on the city, on the whole world, and watch it all with perfect detachment, he can feel everything everywhere, all the pain and joy and anger and grief; he's never been so happy.

Claire tells him to quit. She tells him that he's a different person, that he's a lot less fun, a lot less interesting. He tells her he'll think about it, tells her he'll call in a few days, but he never does. He'll call her when he's desperate, when he needs a place to crash, when he needs money. She's one of those girls with a caretaker instinct.

--

Curt feels like his whole life was already planned out before he was even born. He can trace everything that's happened, all these painfully obvious cause-effect type things, and it's all so trite, it's so cliche, that he feels like he isn't real. He's a washed-up loser, now, and he can trace it all back to where and when and why, but he doesn't know how he could have changed it. It never seemed like he was really the one making decisions. He never had any options, it was all just a series of events that occurred to him, without him ever having any control over any of it. Like a lab-rat, it was too simple. If God is up there, Curt suspects, He is just laughing His ass off. There was this obvious path and Curt was the only person who didn't know where it was going, and God was up there giggling, knowing that Curt was about to slam headfirst into a wall in just a few more steps...

He and Jesse flip a coin to see who ties off first, and Curt loses, which is just so typical.

--

Brian says, "I love you," and Curt is furious.

"Cute," he says. "Real cute, Bri."

Later, Curt will call him from pay phones and then hang up again, just to hear Brian's voice saying Hello. He will scour newspapers and magazines, looking for articles about Brian, but will deny doing it if anyone asks. He can't explain why he's so ashamed.

---

The city is a dirty gray. Cars toss up grime onto the snow, and all the sidewalks are slick with a filthy slush. A man with a harelip and bloodshot eyes asks him for spare change. The stoplights reflect on the man's vampire-pale damp pasty skin, on his crazy eyes, making him look demonic. Curt lies, says he doesn't have any. He doesn't know why, except that he isn't in the mood to give anyone anything. He dislikes the way everything has a biting sharp clarity. He dislikes the way everything is immediate, the way his hand feels on the doorknob, the way the soles of his feet strike his shoes striking the pavement. He wishes he were high. He goes home. He can wait it out, he knows that.

--

Curt hates sobriety. He knows this from instant one, when he wakes up in a white hospital room, sick and disoriented and suddenly flashing back to earlier times. When they let him go, he stalks around the streets hating everything. Nothing feels good anymore, the air tastes funny, and all those things that he had ignored before, all those things that he had drugged into invisibility, they all return with a vengeance, and he has a panic attack on the corner of 54th and 42nd, and he has to duck into an alley to wait it out, hugging himself, gasping for breath, shaking, convinced he's about to die. He suspects he's so used to losing by now that he'll throw a game on purpose, because he doesn't know what it feels like to win.

--

Curt is kissing a dark haired boy in the alleyway. The boy vaguely reminds him of someone else. Curt is happy. Suddenly he wants everything to be okay, he visualizes domestic harmony, true love, sex on the floor, forever and ever. Curt does this every time he meets someone remotely pleasant. He wishes he didn't, but it feels good while it lasts, and that's what he's going for these days.


End file.
